


in between dreams

by nebulaeous (persimmontree)



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, idk man I think it would be neat for them to meet, the rules of time and space don't apply here nor should they, they/them pronouns for the The Hunter and The Knight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persimmontree/pseuds/nebulaeous
Summary: The Good Hunter wanders too far and finds themselves in a strange land.
Relationships: The Hunter & The Knight
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	in between dreams

Wherever they were, they certainly were not in Yharnam.

The spiraling, convoluted architecture of the damned city gave way to desolate dirt roads and strange scuttling creatures whose height didn’t reach past their knees. The creatures reminded them vaguely of Vermin, except they had a more… endearing appearance to them – except when they rushed at them with startling speed. Then, the Hunter was forced to smash their axe upon their shells and split them into two.

Well, it was certainly a nice break from the blood-drunk hunters, blood-matted beasts, blood-stained eldritch abominations, and whatever else that threw itself at the Hunter on a daily (nightly?) basis. Here, there was no blood, or little of it. The creatures they killed simply stopped moving and all that there was left was an empty carcass. The messiest encounters were the ones where orange substance leaked out of the bugs’ bodies; it seemed to possess a hold over the creatures, even pulsing briefly after it had been forcefully ejected.

To be honest, the Hunter didn’t quite know how they ended up here. They were cataloging the twisted roads of the Chalice labyrinths when all of the sudden, the air grew stale and dusty, no longer wet with blood. They were beginning to run out of blood vials, but they didn’t want to die and return to the Dream – not yet at least. They were curious about this part of the labyrinths that seem to be wholly disconnected from the world they knew.

The Plain Doll would give him a proper scolding when they returned. Perhaps she knew of the existence of this place?

They marked their locations previously traveled with stacks of pebbles and trekked onwards, keeping their eyes and ears tuned to any more disturbances in this quiet environment. There was hardly any light in this area except that provided by small, spherical silver globes. The Hunter smashed their way through the area, occasionally marveling at delightfully small signs depicting esoteric icons.

One thing they knew for sure, signs marked evidence of a civilization. There was _someone_ here, for better or for worse. They followed the direction of one sign in particular, one that bore a “bench” icon. A place of rest then? Fantastic!

It was a matter of time, of course, that the Hunter would find more evidence of life here as they soldiered on, and they found solid evidence in the distant clanging of metal on metal. Desperate for some interaction, the Hunter followed the sounds: only to find themselves intruding on a battle.

In the center of violence was a figure who dodged in and out of the ravenous claws and spikes displayed by the creatures. The Hunter found it difficult to track this new persona’s movement, in part because of the darkness, and the other part of how fast they moved. Their movements weren’t perfect; occasionally they would be launched back onto the ground by the enemies, only to get back up and fight again.

The battle ended with the figure slashing its sword across the chest of the remaining beetle, before finally standing still, its body drooping slightly. It lifted its head up and its eyes met the Hunter’s. The Hunter, for their part, carefully approached it, trying to emanate an aura of friendliness. Though, in between the large axe they carried and the battle-torn clothes they wore, who knows whether they were succeeding.

They started at each other for quite a while: eyes of void meeting eyes of steadily collapsing pupils. Slowly, the Hunter lowered themselves down. This creature was remarkably even smaller than the ones they had encountered before; this one reached just below half of his knee and was even clothed in a grey cloak over its black body. On the back, they seemed to bear an even tinier weapon, riddled with cracks. Not only that, they had more sentience than the others, able to recognize something other than a moving figure and attacking on sight.

The Hunter doubted they spoke their language but:

“Hello. Who are you?”

As expected, they gave them a blank stare. Well, there was little to do but interpret every “expression” they made as a blank stare as they possessed no facial features besides those formless eyes on its white…face? It resembled a helmet more than anything else.

The Hunter had to use another approach. They hoped that there were somewhat culturally similar then.

With a finger and using the dirt roads as their canvas, the Hunter tried their best to draw out various common occupations that were common nowadays. Once they were done, they raised their eyebrows inquiringly and hovered their hands over the drawings, spreading them over. The creature looked down onto the drawings, then, after a few second, pointed its own hand (a black stub with no apparent fingers) at one of them.

_The Knight._

The Hunter nodded their head enthusiastically, even pulling down their mask and giving the Knight a smile. The other creatures they had fought had mouths, and they hoped a smile would mean the same thing here.

More hesitation from the Knight – then they extended a hand out to the Hunter. Hesitantly, the Hunter extended one of their fingers out, as their own hand was much too big, and shook fingers: an alliance formed.

(The feeling of… void? Abyss? Darkness? On their glove was a bit unsettling. If nothing felt like something, it would be void.)

After shaking, the Knight continued their merry way towards the bench, with the Hunter following. The Knight handled themselves with such grace, slashing down enemies with that sword of theirs. They wonder where they learned how to fight. The two of them together were a force to be reckoned with; though The Hunter fought better due to the sheer size difference. The tallest monster only reached up to their shoulder, and the Hunter was by no means a tall person.

Every time the Knight was flung back from a nasty blow, the Hunter would run over to them and defend them as they recovered. The Hunter wasn’t quite sure how the Knight did it. From their perspective, it seemed that the Knight was concentrating really, _really,_ hard. The Hunter couldn’t say the same for themselves. They were down to 3 blood vials.

Finally, the pair reached the sacred bench, which was unfortunately sized-down to this world’s inhabitants’ sizes. The Knight plopped themselves onto the bench and materialized a map out of thin air, charting the labyrinthine caverns. The Hunter perched themselves just behind the Knight, observing how with efficient easy the Knight drew. Colorful pins decorated the paper; the Hunter tried to discern where exactly they came from based on the map, but they weren’t used to looking at a 2D layout of their surroundings.

Indeed, the Hunter’s spatial awareness was higher than most. They wandered the twisting, snake-infested dirt roads of the Forbidden Woods by sheer memory.

With a faint delight, the Hunter noticed that there were two different styles to the map: one in the Knight’s style and one in another style, still fairly recent based on the lack of wear. So, wherever they were, still had a few sane and friendly inhabitants.

Ah, not too different from Yharnam, the Hunter supposed. There were still a few friendly faces in that city too, even if the numbers dwindled as the night stretched on and on. The orange globs infecting the monsters in this area too reminded him of blood-drunkenness. They hoped that the infection was specific to bugs, and not humans – or whatever the Hunter considered themselves nowadays.

They popped a blood vial and waited for the Knight to finish whatever business they had here. Soon enough, the Knight hopped off the bench, looked at the Hunter, to which they nodded.

Suddenly: the Hunter was overcome with the urge to pat the Knight’s head – to which they indulged immediately by kneeling down and gently doing so. The Knight, as expected, didn’t show any emotion but the Hunter could _feel_ some warmth radiating from them.

“Would you like to ride on my shoulder?” The Hunter pointed to their companion and then to their leather-padded shoulder. Considering that whatever civilization inhabited these lands scaled everything down to bug-size, and that the Hunter covered more ground with one step than the Knight’s five steps, perhaps they could reach their destination faster – wherever that was.

There was a reason why the Knight was wandering these hell-touched lands. Perhaps the Hunter would never discover the reason, but they were happy to help. The Hunter wished that they had a purpose of their own, but they liked going around and telling the remaining inhabitants of Yharnam of safe havens. Well, only one safe haven existed: the lofty and vaguely ominous halls of Cathedral Ward.

The Knight accepted their invitation and so, the Hunter stood up and delicately picked the Knight up and placed them on their shoulders.

Well, here they go then.

They ventured forth, with the Knight perching themselves on the Hunter’s padded shoulders and only leaving when there were enemies to face. This leg of the journey was slightly more physically strenuous, filled with rather large jumps and strategically placed spikes, but their legs were springy and long enough to conquer most of them. The pair was silent for most of the trip, with the Knight leading the way.

Objectively, it was a terrible idea to let someone you had met lead you to an unknown location but the Hunter wasn’t afraid of death. They quite literally couldn’t die, though, whether this area was contingent with their world (and thus, was connected to the Dream) was something that Hunter had their doubts about. They would have to go home sooner or later; they didn’t want to discover that their presupposition was wrong.

The Choir would disapprove of their lack of commitment to testing out arguably unethical hypotheses, but the Hunter wasn’t about to seek validation from an organization who sought _its_ validation from cosmic horrors.

They approached a large room, the largest the Hunter has seen so far. The exit was just on the other side of the room, so why did they feel such –

Ah.

From the ceiling, a challenger armored in silver dropped, sending shockwaves rippling across the floor. It held a mace, swinging it around dexterously while leaping and charging. Unlike the other monsters they have faced, this one was a great deal bigger, and moved far faster than they expected it too. Finally! Something that the Hunter was familiar with.

Until the barrels started falling that is. Death from above. Great.

Every time the enemy reared back and then swung forward with its mace, the impact would be strong enough to fall. This was, of course, after they found out why their opponent managed to move relatively swiftly despite the armor: a strange, white, and squishy creature using the armor as a shell (a False Knight, then). This raised more questions than answers, but at this point, the Hunter was satisfied with _not_ knowing.

The Hunter had tried to use their remaining blood vials sparingly, but had to use their last one after getting caught in a nasty swing of the mace. Their movements became more sluggish with each passing second; the Knight seemed to fare better, using that unique regeneration ability they had. As the Knight was one of two friendly faces the Hunter had encountered since arriving to this strange new world(s), they tried to protect the Knight from any incoming damage. After all, it was the Knight that had a purpose here, not them.

Kindness, however, was often not sufficiently rewarded. The False Knight reared back again and slammed down its mace after the Knight swung its sword. Barrels once again fell down from the ceiling and the Hunter adeptly back-stepped to dodge, only to get crushed by the False Knight’s leaping attack.

The familiar mist of death gripped the Hunter as their consciousness faded. Still, the battle raged around them but not a single hit landed on him further. Soon enough, silence hung heavy and the Hunter heard tiny, minuscule footsteps towards him.

With the remaining tatters of his energy, the Hunter extended their finger to the Knight, to which the Knight accepted. 

The last thing he saw were the Knight’s hollow eyes, staring at him with a hint of urgency – before he faded into unconsciousness.

* * *

For quite some time, the Hunter didn’t know where they were. They landed in an impossibly bright place that almost burned their eyes, surrounded by passing clouds. It had been a long time since the Hunter saw the sun, but this wasn’t the sun. The light here was all-encompassing, threatening, _suffocating._ Strange, circular motifs blinked in and out of existence, making it difficult to concentrate.

They felt like they were dreaming, but this wasn’t the Dream that they were familiar with. This dream – they wanted to escape. They wandered and they wandered, a headache beginning to pulse like they had consumed too much Insight in one go. Were they doomed to be here forever?

Their pace slowed to a crawl, eventually stopping all together. This blinding light nearly erased all their thoughts together; the feeling was similar to the blood-drunkenness, when all they felt was an overwhelming need to _kill._ No – they would not succumb to that here.

With renewed vigor, the Hunter soldiered on. The light seemed to become more intense and once again, their pace slowed, collapsing onto their hands and knees, the image of decadent steeples and frosted glass on their mind.

* * *

The familiar, misty air of the Dream waked the Hunter from their death slumber. Slowly, achingly, they opened their eyes, back wet from the dewy ground, and clutched their head. The night’s events came back to him in distorted pieces, like he was seeing them through water. He remembered the Knight, the Infection, that terrible light... but nothing else. If he hadn’t focused so much on trying to remember,

Above him, stood the gentle Plain Doll, looking down at him with concern.

“Good Hunter, where have you been?” She reached down with her porcelain hands and heaved them up to their feet, though the Hunter’s legs felt like jelly. The Doll responded to this by supporting their weight on her surprisingly sturdy shoulders. “A strange smell clings to you – did you get lost in the Chalices?”

“Something… of the sort…”

The Hunter was _sure_ it happened. They knew that they were in those labyrinthine caverns of the Chalices and they _somehow_ ended up… there. They didn’t know how to explain it and the Doll probably didn’t know. She was aware of the dangers that lurked beneath but wasn’t aware of their layout.

She guided them to the inside of church, settling them down on a chair with cloths of every color draped over it. It seemed that Gehrman decided to go out into the gardens today. The Doll murmured that she will fetch some tea for them, leaving them to their own devices.

The Hunter knew that one day that they and the Knight would meet again, whether in dreams or in the waking world. They had shaken hands, became allies, maybe even friends, and the Hunter wouldn’t abandon someone like that. They wouldn’t abandon the inhabitants of Cathedral Ward, he would abandon the Doll, and nor would they abandon the Knight.

They laughed to themselves. Well, reunions were all the more sweet if great lengths of time had passed! Perhaps the tiny Knight would be bigger next time they met. Until that time came, the Hunter would fulfill their duties here and then go looking for the Knight again.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by valdotpng's charming drawing: https://valdotpng.tumblr.com/post/190865789426/handshake
> 
> please give them a follow!
> 
> hope you enjoyed reading this! please let me know what you think! <3


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